On the second night of Passover, three masked men arrived outside Beyt Menahem Mendal Synagogue, carrying bundles of these notices. They posted one on the wall and then distributed the rest to about 200 Jewish worshippers who were leaving the modestly ornate building.

The leaflet ordered all “citizens of Jewish nationality” to “register” with the Donetsk regional administration, now controlled by pro-Russian revolutionaries. They were told to bring a $50 fee to a “room 514” in the main government building, which was seized by separatists a fortnight ago.

The Jews were also instructed to take a “passport for us to make a note about your religion” and “documents about your family composition”. The leaflet said they should furnish proof of ownership of all “property and vehicles”.

Any Jews who failed to comply would be deprived of their citizenship and expelled from the “borders of the Republic”, said the flyer. All their property would also be confiscated.

Rabbi Vishedski remembered the moment on Wednesday night when his congregation found this leaflet being pressed into their hands after a Passover service.

”The first minutes were very terrible for people to read out this text,” he said. “People were very upset for the fact that someone could write this, someone could sit by the computer - someone could print a text like that.”

The leaflet carries the crest of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, whose leaders have taken over official buildings in nine towns and cities across this region, in reaction to the February Revolution in Kiev. Ironically, they claim to have seized power to protect local people from the “Fascists” and “anti-Semites” who supposedly dominate Ukraine’s new government.

No-one has established who produced the leaflet, which bears no signature. There is no proof that it came from any of the leaders of the “People’s Republic” - and they adamantly deny involvement.

Rabbi Vishedksi described it as a “provocation” and refrained from casting blame. “We are not taking this out of proportion,” he said. “It did not come from some organisation.”

He added: “We called on the security service of the country and the police and we asked them to take care and find out who made it. But for us, it doesn’t matter who made it. For us, the terrible fact is that someone made it.”

Rabbi Vishedski urged “all the political leaders” in Ukraine to issue a “very clear statement” condemning the leaflet. As for whether the security forces would take the investigation seriously and hunt down anyone responsible, he said: “I want to hope so. They came here, they took pictures of that. But in the last two days, we didn’t hear from them. I would like to hope they will find someone.”

Written threats of this kind summon particularly painful memories in Ukraine, where about 900,000 Jews - at least 60 per cent of the total population - perished during the Holocaust. After the Nazi invasion in 1941, the forests of western Ukraine were the chosen setting for some of the first massacres of Jews.

Today, however, Donetsk has a Jewish population of between 15,000 and 17,000, served by one synagogue, a school and a community centre. Rabbi Vishedksi said there was no “Jewish question” in Donetsk and his community played a full part in the life of the city.

”Our feeling now is like the feeling of all the people of Donetsk,” he said. “We are a piece of Donetsk. We are all together - and all of us pray to God that there shall be peace.”

The leaflet purports to carry the name of Denis Pushilin, the leader of the revolutionary council of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”. But he is wrongly described as the “People’s Governor”.

On Friday, Mr Pushilin denied any knowledge of the flyer, describing it as a “provocation” designed to discredit the pro-Russian cause.

”This is the method that Kiev has used,” he said. “The leaflets they say are from the People’s Republic about Jews - all these are provocations. They have no basis at all.”